Twitter on your Blog!

I was all against Twitter untill I launched techedIN. I don't like the idea of strangers following me and my activities appearing on the public time line. I once used Twitter and found that more than friends, strangers followed what I was doing and posting on twitter. Every time I posted something I got a follower and most of them I am sure were spammers from the look of their profiles.

Yes, I know! Twitter gives me this option of protecting my updates from the public time line. I started using it and since none of my friends are on Twitter, I found this idea of posting for myself disgusting.

Having said all this, I still think Twitter is a cool idea. Cool idea if you have friends and relatives following what you are up to. Unfortunately, in India, for most folks social networking is at the most a profile on Orkut. It has not gone beyond that and I don't know if it will go beyond that in the near future. So, I think, I got to wait till most of my friends and relatives get on the Twitter bandwagon to post what exactly I am doing where!

Till I see my folks on Twitter, I think my Twitter Account can be used for promoting what I post on techedIN. Ya, it is a mutual promotion. I use Twitter to promote what I do on techedIN and Twitter uses my blog to promote their site. How? I have put this Twitter Badge on my blog and it certainly links back to Twitter. And when my people read my Blog, I hope they will notice the Twitter Badge on my Blog and try visiting the site and create a profile and start tweeting.

How did I put this badge on my Blog? It is very simple. If you have a profile on twitter, go to the Settings Page. On the Account Settings Page, Twitter gives you an option to add your site address. [You can add your site there and it is in a way a promotional link to your blog or site] Right below where you add your site address, there is a link to the Twitter Widget Page. Click on it and go to the Twitter's 'Get a Widget' Page. There you have five options to choose from. If all that you need is a simple widget to go on your blog, you can click on Blogger or TypePad or Other and get your widget. But if you have a taste and want your widget to look cool, I suggest you go for the Facebook compatible Flash Widget. This is what i chose and it goes well on Blogger. All that you need to do is to copy the script and add to your Blog from your Blogger Layout Page.

Every time I have a new post, I post a link to it on Twitter. And I kind of get someone, at least one person, following me per post. Most of them are spammers, I know. But I don't care now. I don't care because even if spammers are reading it, I'll be only happy that hopefully they will come and read what I have on my blog. That's not a bad deal at all, is it? Gradually, I hope, real people with good intetions, real people who are interested in what I got to say, will start following me. Till then, I don't mind even if spammers and hackers follow what I post on Twitter!